Or not.

One of Etu's shriveled hands, the flesh brown like sun scorched leather, twitched.  Blindly groping, as if on its own instinct, it reached for the curving shape of the black staff.  When those skeletally thin fingers found it, there was a hum of power, and with a gentle sigh a miasma of black sand began to pulse from her body in slowly shifting waves. Her grasp tightened about it, and the thrumming noise went subvocal, more sensation than sound.

With a parched sounding groan, as if she hadn't had a drink in days, she sat up.

"I...  dreamed that everything I had known had fallen."

She said, her voice surprisingly light and dreamlike despite the bone dry death rattle that filled her throat.

"And that all the silver keys I had been gifted were chains of thorns. Was I truly nothing but a maker of such, and little more?"

She rose, shakily at first, but gaining strength.  As she stood, black sand fell off of her in a wave, as if she had been draped in a thin veil of the stuff. Her eyes, vastly deep things, settled in the direction of the Lampkeeper.

"Is this to be my punishment then, at the end of all things?  Bound undying for all eternity?"

Rahim's grip is just as tight, his arms wrapped around Her so tight that it seems as though ribs should be cracking. The lamp falls abandoned to the ground, landing in a stream of blood; the fire blinks out as it falls from his hand. He buries his face in her hair, and breathes deep, and all the tension runs out of him. His voice shapes words in a language that hasn't been spoken aloud in eons .

He does not pull away, does not look away, barely even breathes. But he musters a sentence after Etu speaks. "Your future is your own now, a gift to you - treasure it, for such things are all too simply lost." It is not wholly clear whom this was addressed to.

  The woman in his arms laughs through audible tears and sniffles, but moves only to expose her mouth.  "Etu!  Old friend, things have continued on!  Irohn has survived!  If you are undying now, then that is a blessing.  So many have been lost..."  She shivers and presses tighter against Rahim.

  "I remember both pasts...  Even speaking to— But they were both me, and both strangers, and...  Oh it doesn't matter.  I am alive.  I am still alive again.  And you, my heart's breath, are—"  She replies, and it's in that language again, unheard in Irohn but fluent from her lips.  Whispers at first, but whatever she's talking about, she can't suppress her joy for long.  But when she looks up, she stops abruptly, then frowns and spends a moment searching the eerie mask that stands in for the Lampkeeper's face.  "You've... Another sacrifice, Rahim?  Was the fire not enough?  Etu, can you come closer?  Your particular skills might be needed; I'm not certain."

Etu stared, unblinking, at the Lampkeeper where he held the woman she had known.

"A gift?"

She paused, contemplative, her words more for herself than for them.

"Anaya was... a lie."

She sat up, using the staff which bore the name of the one she called liar.

"I will not serve as I once did.  I will not help as I once helped.  I am Undying, but that part of me is dead."

She would practically be shouting, but her voice was too dry to do so.  It came out only as a hoarse whisper.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:05, Sat 05 Dec 2020.

  Now La turns in the tall man's arms, a frown already settling on her brow before she even gets a look at Etu.  Out comes a bit of a horrified gasp, when she does.  "Etu!  Ohhh, no wonder you blaspheme.  But don't lose heart!  I'm sure one of the Inhe—  The...  I'm...  oh."  She shakes her head clear and swivels to better face her desiccated friend.  It doesn't require the slightest interruption of crushing herself into this "heart's breath"'s chest, come to find out.

  "They're— The Inheritors of Amaya's power, they're really amazing.  Were you hurt in the invasion?  The harrying on the glass road?  I'm not sure how much you saw of them, but I've been present for so many miracles, Etu.  Surely one of them will be able to help.  There's a scholar who knows just about everything, and I know he'd savor the challenge.  And if he can devise a way, one of the noblewomen has the power to make it happen, without fail.  Really, the two of them have become anchors for the survivors.  Oh!  And there are so many!  Please come back with me, Etu, won't you?  I'll be sure to lead conversation away from your unfortunate condition."

"Invasion?"

The word was meaningless to her, for she had been trapped, and knew not of what the other woman spoke.

"You are known to me. You are Bire La.  She who managed the temple.  I have known nothing since Anaya's fall, cut off from the world by whatever that..."

She shuddered.

"... prison was. A penance, perhaps.  One that I will forever dread, even if it was deserved."

She took a step, and her staff landed on the cobblestones with a weighty thud.

"I will meet this scholar, for I am troubled by a lifetime of sin. The scales will never be weighed, but with his knowledge perhaps there can at least be an accounting.  Yes, I will follow you Bire La, for there is so much work to be done."

  And that left one. "This is not our home anymore. It has not been for a long time. There is a vast city of people on the other side of a simple door, and they have been blessed to have... several righteous indi—" She stumbles over something then, enough to actually put more weight on the Lampkeeper briefly. When she slides her hands up his shoulders, it is so her arms give her space to look him in the eyes.

  "You told me an eternity ago that you would follow me to Hell, to keep me safe. An instant ago, that you would serve, to save me again. Come. I will always return here, but we have both been too long among dappled shadows. Come." She nods by a margin in Etu's direction.

"Much is needed. Jade, gold, silver, and a smith work them."

She said incongruously, placing the butt of her badge of office down onto the ground with a weighty thud as she took her first step. Death surrounded her, called to her, ephemeral and intangible. The work before her was endless, but she had nothing but time.

Alvatter appeared in the strange place of blood and crystal, of freshly released corpses and esoteric powers that played at the edges of the arcane and eldritch. He listened as much as he saw but had no understanding. What was clear to him at least was that Bire La was alive, albeit changed, and she was not alone. He relayed this information to the others but nothing more. Mostly because he wasn't sure in himself what to make of what was going on or how to address it.

As Alvatter shared what he was seeing, the artisan's expression faltered briefly, and she she seemed a bit stunned for a moment, given the details he related. "It.. sounds as though La is at least managing the situation she found herself in, if she isn't hurt, though I can't say I that..." She glanced over to Laila for a moment, then back to Alavatter. "Do you know where to find her?"

Rahim nods, slowly. "The shadows are...trying. If you say there is elsewhere to go, then I will follow." He beckons. The forest twists.

The door of Kayla al-Saif's house opens, and in step the three of them - a tall man with eerily pale skin and fine features, a woman who sheds darkness, and that which once was Bire La, who now has emerald eyes and an entirely different bearing. It seems to have happened far too quickly for them to have made their way there from the forest.


"Don't be afraid. I mean you no harm." The Lampkeeper's voice is gentle, almost caring in a strange way.

Alvatter shook his head in the negative and went to speak when the door opened. Turning to see who had entered he allowed his spell to collapse entirely. To say he was shocked was perhaps an understatement but the Lampkeeper, or who he assumed as the Lampkeeper, had his desired effect. Alvatter did not move nor speak, simply listen.

The woman who shed darkness was hardly a living thing at all.

Her silhouette was human enough, though despite her small frame those with keen senses might have noticed that something was wrong. Sharp eyes would have spotted flickering shadows about her face, sharp ears might have heard the rasp of sand that accompanied her every movement.

Her flesh was as dry and taunt as leather long scorched by the sun.   Each movement she made accompanied by a fall of a thin layer of black sand, as if she were somehow a shattered statue brought to life. Yet it was the miasma of death that clung to her that was the most obvious, a black shroud that hung about her in a grim aura.  It was a dark, cold, dry thing, ever present in her divinity. She carried with her a heavy staff, fashioned of some strange and twisted black metal.  The miasma that so infused her infused through this too, the Necromantic energy the antithesis of all life.

She stared out from beneath her cowl at the others, her withered gaze resolute and unflinching.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:37, Wed 09 Dec 2020.

Laila had scarcely had a chance to process this new, and regrettably vague, information before the issue forced itself. It hardly mattered that her companions vouched for Bire La, nor that she neither understood the nature of the company she kept or how they had fallen in together. All that truly mattered was that unfamiliar (and dare she say untrustworthy) faces had imposed upon a place under her protection unannounced.

Without a word she rose from her chair, crossed the room and stood sentinel at Kayla's flank. It was a smooth and measured motion rather than one carried by the raw urgency of fear, but she hardly needed to draw her weapon to give voice to her thoughts. Even if this was to be a reunion the air about it was anything but celebratory. No joy and smiles now.

"That may be so, but things are moving very quickly. I hope you can forgive us some precautions," Laila returned. She offered the very slightest of nods. "Laila Casryn of Irohn. What would you have us call you?"

From where she sat, seeing the door slip ajar and two unknown figures enter, with  La among them, her eyes and... everything seeming different at a glance... Rashana moved as Laila did, up to her feet with a guarded expression, her hand lowering and fingers outstretched as if ready to close around an object that wasn't quite present, yet, something yet to be formed out of raw creative potential... waiting there at the edge of possibility for her to make it real.

"La... what happened? And exactly who are those two?" She prompted, her eyes darting from the woman reeking of death to the uncomfortably gently-voiced man.

  "What?! Laila!!?  I...  Hrm."  The slight woman steps immediately, protectively, to the front in almost perfect coordination with the swordswoman, but drops her own guard upon seeing Laila's face.  Recovering haltingly, she considers the group seated now standing before them, then brightens when she sees the tea.  She holds out one hand, closes her fist, and opens it palm-up to reveal a handful of loose petals the air does not dare disturb.

  "Some chrysanthemum, lord and ladies?  I see the water is still hot enough for steeping."  She blows them into the air then, but they all disappear into twinkles a pace away from her.  It draws out a little delighted laugh.  "I suppose you were not my friends, but we have been companions since Anaya was lost.  Call me Alýeda; La is a Servant's name."  Hands coming together in front of her waist, she lowers her head respectfully, but no more than that before stepping forward with a warm smile.

  "I have so much to explain.  But first: this is Etu, from Irohn.  She provided the bulk of the labor force for the Dreaming See.  I could not mistake her.  And this—"  She turns from the lich to extend a hand to the wraith.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:52, Sun 20 Dec 2020.

Kayla stares, her face going nearly as pale as the ghostly-pale features of the man beside Bire Alyeda. "That's him. That's him. You brought the Lampkeeper inside the wards?" Her voice rises to nearly a shriek as she says this last, and she produces a knife from under the table.

  Alyeda frowns and turns back to the Lampkeeper.  "Lamp... You mean Rahim??" She sidesteps closer to him, both empty hands up, but her eyes widen with sudden realization before she's even settled into place.  "The lantern.  Of course.  And the blood.  Oh no, no, there will be no more!  We should talk, without the weapons?"

Etu was silent as Alyeda introduced her, unmoving and untouched by the stares of those about her within the shadows of her cowled hood. When she saw the knife, her fingers tightened slightly about her staff, but that was the only indication she gave that she had even noticed.

"Of what wards do you speak?"

She said at last, her voice parched and raspy as a knife run over a file.

Laila took a step forward, her arm sweeping sharply across her chest to cover Kayla as barrier and shield alike. A flicker of concentration crossed her face – but half a breath – and in its wake a wave of something. There was no blinding show of lights, no coruscating surge of power. Those about her would merely feel a pleasant warmth on their skin like the height of golden summer, the comfort of watching a new dawn rise with its promise of a better day to come. There could be no darkness here – not in the face of her light.

Her head tilted ever so slightly towards their host. She spoke with a deliberate calm. “Kayla, please. Your protection is my concern, and I will let no harm come to you. Put the knife down and let us speak while we have the chance. If violence comes of it then mine is the only blade you will need.”

At that she turned her attention back to their visitors.

“My wards”, Laila sighed with no small bitterness. “The work of weeks that you rendered so very pointless with this trespass.” A slight flick of her fingers towards the Lampkeeper. “Meant to keep him out.”

OOC: Committing Effort to extend Heart of the Lion to allies.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:45, Fri 11 Dec 2020.

Kayla relaxes, perceptibly, and sets the knife down on the table - still in easy reach, but not in her hand. "If you say so," she says stiffly, not taking her eyes off of the Lampkeeper (Rahim?).

Etu turned, regarding the Lampkeeper dispassionately. Little motes of black sand fell from her as she did, defying gravity to orbit about her in a lazy cloud.

"And who is he, save for the instrument of my first penance?"

A rough gesture towards their host. "Is her terror not answer enough?"

"To the people of the Garden he is death. He is the reason they fear the darkness and dare not wander from the marked paths; he haunts their nightmares as their borders."

Rashana stared with baffled eyes, and after a few moments of putting things together in the back of her mind, she spoke. "... Without weapons." She said, moving her hand and she looked to Leila with a nod. "Please, explain this, We're all very curious. ...Alyeda, my first question is what happened to you?" Her eye darted back to the  Lampkeeper warily. "You said there would be no more blood. Do you have some certainty of that?"